ARBERIAONLINE

"Moreover, you scorned our people, and compared the Albanese to sheep, and according to your custom think of us with insults. Nor have you shown yourself to have any knowledge of my race. Our elders were Epirotes, where this Pirro came from, whose force could scarcely support the Romans. This Pirro, who Taranto and many other places of Italy held back with armies. I do not have to speak for the Epiroti. They are very much stronger men than your Tarantini, a species of wet men who are born only to fish. If you want to say that Albania is part of Macedonia I would concede that a lot more of our ancestors were nobles who went as far as India under Alexander the Great and defeated all those peoples with incredible difficulty. From those men come these who you called sheep. But the nature of things is not changed. Why do your men run away in the faces of sheep?"

Letter from Skanderbeg to the Prince of Taranto ▬ Skanderbeg, October 31 1460

In the end our Albanian staff included Moslems, "Greeks," Protestants, and Catholics. I think one of the bravest men I have ever known was one of the Protestants. He had a superb physique, but he had been born in a town and had never carried arms. At the time when the Turkish authorities in Castoria were molesting the Bulgarian peasants who came into our hospital, beating some of them, detaining others, and carrying off a few against their will to the Turkish ambulance, I sent this man to take his stand at the gate of the town, and inform me at once if any violence was offered to our protégés. He had not long to wait, but instead of losing time while he ran for me, he dealt with the situation himself. He marched boldly, unarmed "Giaour" though he was, into the midst of the Turkish soldiers and gendarmes, rescued the Bulgarian peasants by main force and escorted them triumphantly to our hospital. The possession of a rifle will often make a man of a Bulgarian insurgent, but only an Albanian could have showed such courage as this, unarmed, against a crowd of Turks with weapons. But there are in the Albanian nature even rarer capacities than this.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present

The Turk of to-day makes a good soldier, but that does not imply that he is really warlike. He is a man who can stand in ranks and obey commands. He will follow his officers with unquestioning obedience, make light of hardship, and fight with superb obstinacy on the defensive. But he has not the Albanian passion for movement and danger. He does not live to win praises for his courage as the Albanian does. He is stupid and unimaginative, and his courage is deficient in dash and aggressiveness. The Albanian, on the other hand, is a born fighter, who cares for no other distinction

At the first charge at the mortar baterry, the Russian leader who wore an Albanian costume and whose gallantry was most cospicuous fell dead ...
It is not known how many Albanian chiefs were there with the Russians but certainly the two who were killed led them on with interpidity and ferocius courage. One of them, who struggled into the battery, inspite of a severe wound, while his life blood was ebbing fast, rushed at the powder barrel and fired his pistol into it before he fell. Fortunately the barrel did not explode as the fire did not go through the wood. Another charged with a scimitar in one hand and a curved blade, which he used as a dagger, in the other, right into our ranks twice, and fell dead the second time, perforated with balls and bayonets. They were magnificiently dressed and it is supposed they were men of rank

The most herois race inhabiting the Near East is that of the Albanians ... It is a mistake to assume that the Albanians in any true sense of the term represent barbarism as contrasted with modern civilization. They have supplied the most valiant soldiers and ablest statemen at the command of Turkish Sultans. Physically and intellectually there is probably no stronger race in modern Europe ...

'The Brisbain Courier' 19 July 1911

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present

Physically and intellectually there is probably no stronger race in modern Europe

This is the reason they try to isolate us, then through a communist regime, and now through visas and for not meeting the "democratic" standarts. For how long they will apply ostacles, until we become so poor that we will feel no need for patriotism? I think this time they have no means to prevent our vitality and energy as a race showing up in its natural force around the Europe.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing